DATRON Expands their Line of Dental Milling Machines

Posted on April 2, 2014

DATRON Dynamics, Representative of DATRON AG in Germany, has introduced two new products to stand on each side of the award-winning D5 Dental Mill. The D5 Entry and the D5LS have been added to their lineup in order to offer a scalable solution that meets the needs of a wider range of dental labs. All three machines in the DATRON line allow for the milling of zirconia and other soft materials, as well as harder materials like chrome cobalt and titanium.

For labs that want to mill metal and have low to moderate production levels, DATRON now offers the D5 Entry model with a manual (puck) changer. This model costs approximately $50,000 less than the D5 Standard which includes 8-puck automation for labs that have moderate to high production volumes and want up to 100 hours of unattended operation. “The D5 Entry is ideal for labs that want to mill their own titanium implant parts, but don’t require automatic puck changes,” said Robert Murphy, Vice President, noting that it can be upgraded to include automation if the lab’s needs change in the future.

For labs that demand a higher level of precision than the ± 10 microns offered by the D5 Entry and Standard models, the D5 LS is equipped with Heidenhain linear scales which result in the highest positioning accuracy. The D5 LS also provides increased thermal stability which helps to yield a consistent quality even when there are significant fluctuations in room temperature or temperature increases caused by extended uninterrupted milling. This results in a repeatability of < 2 microns and an absolute accuracy of ± 5 microns making the D5 LS the most accurate purpose-built dental milling system worldwide.

The original D5 Standard 5-axis dental mill was introduced in 2010 to critical acclaim that earned a prestigious RedDot Design Award for Best Industrial Design. Since then, the D5 Standard has set the bar when it comes to high-quality in-lab milling of titanium implant bars and custom abutments. The machine’s rigid cast steel construction houses an integrated 8-piece handling system that automatically loads and unloads blanks for up to 100 hours of unattended operation. The D5 is the first machining center in the world to feature a user-friendly touch-screen Apple iPad to control all machine functions.

In the first quarter of 2014 alone, US labs have already invested more than $1.2 Million dollars in technology (or the capability) to mill titanium implant parts in-house.